


Guess I'm A Bad Liar

by Zee



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: AU where superman and batman never work together, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Secret Identity Fail, Undercover Missions, and batman is trying to keep the existence of robin a secret, so superboy and robin have never met
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-14 09:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13586733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zee/pseuds/Zee
Summary: “Tim Drake, huh? Of the Gotham City Drakes. Fancy.” Conner touched the photo attached to one of the newspaper clippings, Tim’s face grainy and small. “Hey, I can handle it. Just because I’m not super used to going undercover on my own doesn’t mean I don’t know how it’s done.”





	Guess I'm A Bad Liar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shoemaster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoemaster/gifts).



> Written for shoemaster! Thank you so much for prodding me to write this pairing for the fist time in like a decade. Turns out I still have a whole lot of feelings about Tim/Kon, who knew?
> 
> I haven't read a DC comic book since 2006, so I'm sure there are plenty of canon errors in this. It's an AU, so you know, I'm handwaving the beast that is comics continuity. Thanks to misspamela for the beta! Title is from "Bad Liar" by Selena Gomez.

Conner studied the pictures in front of him. Printed-out photos from Facebook and actual newspaper clippings, even though he could have pulled all this up on a few different Google tabs, because Clark was helplessly old-fashioned and liked having information in a more tangible form. 

“Tim Drake, huh? Of the Gotham City Drakes. Fancy.” Conner touched the photo attached to one of the newspaper clippings, Tim’s face grainy and small in the background of some puff piece about his father’s holiday habits. The billionaire investor was quite the family man, according to the article.

“I know you’re not the most experienced when it comes to undercover work, but think of this as more of a protection detail,” Clark said. He pushed his glasses up his nose and plucked one of the newspaper articles from the pile. It was from some business journal, announcing the recent joint project between Drake Industries and LuthorCorp. “We just need to make sure that whatever Luthor’s planning won’t put Tim into any immediate danger.”

“Sure, protection detail, got it. But you also need info on his dad, right?” In one of Tim’s more recent Facebook photos, he was smiling and standing with a few other teenagers in front of what looked like a big community garden. It looked like some kind of school service project. There were very few photos of him just hanging out with friends, or traveling, or selfies. Maybe those were all locked. 

“Well, yes. I just don’t want you to feel solely responsible for this investigation. Supergirl will be trying another angle on the Drake and Luthor connection, and Lois and I are both working on stories for the Planet about it.” 

Conner waved a hand, trying not to squirm under the heavy sincerity in Clark’s gaze. “Hey, I can handle it. Just because I’m not super used to going undercover on my own doesn’t mean I don’t know how it’s done.”

Clark pressed his lips together, like Conner not knowing how it was done was exactly what he was worried about. Which was a little insulting, but Conner figured that calling him on it and seeming petty and defensive wouldn’t help his case. 

“Good undercover work means knowing when to be cautious, when to take a calculated risk, and calling it quits when you’re not sure between the two,” Conner said, reciting back from one of Clark’s lectures from his first months out of the lab, when he’d still been green. “See? No se preocupe.”

“I hope that means you’re doing well in your Spanish class,” Clark said, unimpressed. “You’ll have a different name, a new identity as a transfer student from a suburb of Gotham. We’ll tell Smallville High that you had mono for a few weeks, when you return.” Clark tossed him his new ID, and Conner caught it and made a face as soon as he saw the name.

“Conrad? Seriously? That’s _terrible._ No one is going to buy me as a Conrad, I am way cooler than anyone named Conrad could possibly be.”

“It’s close enough to give you some leeway, should you accidentally answer to the wrong name or introduce yourself wrong.” Geez, again with the total lack of faith. “And it’s a good thing that you don’t feel it suits you, because you’re not going to be yourself. You’re going to be someone else.”

Conner flicked his student ID onto the table on top of all the other information they had about Tim Drake. It seemed like a lot of effort and shiftiness to go through just for one rich kid, even if his dad was potentially being led to the dark side by Luthor. 

Maybe Clark was being extra careful because it was Gotham. Conner could only assume that Batman didn’t know about this operation, he hated having other heroes in his city. And Clark hated letting other heroes try to go up against Lex, so they were gonna go behind Batman’s back and just hope that he wasn’t trying to go behind their back at the same time.

According to Lois, Batman and Superman had actually worked together pretty well at some point. But that had been way before Conner’s time, before Batman’s last sidekick had died. Now, Conner couldn’t imagine having any kind of interaction with the guy that wasn’t hostile as hell.

“I’ll leave Conner Kent and Superboy both behind in S-ville,” Conner says, giving Clark a mini-salute. “Conrad Garrety, here I come.”

***

Conner had only been to Gotham a couple times before, and never when it was not mostly on fire or under attack from aliens and/or cyborgs. On a weekday morning, in the fancypants residential neighborhood of Tim Drake’s prep school, it seemed a lot like any other city. Maybe a little older, more weathered. Maybe some of all this ivy-covered brick had a sinister lean to it, if Conner looked closer.

But mostly it was hard to imagine Batman or any of his villains stepping out of the shadows here. Conner was surrounded by teenagers in matching uniforms and expensive shoes, half-jogging from the closest bus stop or being dropped off by black cars. Other than the expensive shoes, they were talking and yelling and jostling each other just like his classmates at Smallville High did. All Conner felt was his out-of-place discomfort that came from being a year-old clone with superpowers amongst normal kids, rather than any out-of-place-ness specific to this being Gotham.

Not that this meant he wasn’t jumpy. Or fighting the urge to look over his shoulder constantly in case Batman was watching him. 

He tried to tell himself that it was irrational: Batman didn’t know Conner’s secret identity and certainly didn’t know about Conrad Garrety. And Batman was just a human guy with gadgets. He wasn’t actually all-seeing or all-knowing.

Conner pushed his glasses up his nose (rectangular frames, different from his usual since this was a new identity and all, and he’d cut his hair shorter too) and joined the cluster of students heading into the front doors of the school.

He had homeroom with Tim. And a couple other classes with him too, but this was a small school and they were in the same grade, so that probably wouldn’t raise any suspicions.

To Conner’s disappointment, there wasn’t an empty seat next to Tim when he finally found the right classroom. Tim was seated close to the back corner, and the people sitting around him were talking to each other but not to him. 

Conner sat as close to Tim as he could. When the teacher asked him to stand up and introduce himself as the new transfer student, he managed to catch Tim’s eye and smiled at him. Tim didn’t smile back, but he did raise one eyebrow, the rest of his expression remaining neutral. It made him look austere and way older than he was, like a somber 50-year-old in a teenager’s body. Conner’s grin widened, his expression going silly without really thinking about it, winking at Tim. Then the moment passed, and he was turning back to the front of the classroom and sitting down, but he thought he caught Tim blinking at him, startled.

Did that even count as introducing himself to his assignment? Probably not according to the undercover rulebook. But hopefully it made it seem slightly less random for Conner to catch up to Tim as he exited the classroom, bumping their shoulders together out in the hall and saying hey.

Tim gave him a blank look and hitched his messenger bag higher on his shoulder. “Oh, uh, hi. You're a transfer student, right?”

“That's me, new and clueless.” Conner licked his lips, nervous. He didn't actually know how to… do this, the whole “befriending" thing. His superhero friends he'd met through Clark or through life-threatening events, and he couldn't really remember how he'd become friendly with the kids he talked to at Smallville High. He'd never really tried to do this all deliberately before. 

“Is there any dirt on Mr. Mulaney? What's he like?”

Tim raised an eyebrow again, and again looked bizarrely old for his age. “He's fine, I guess. If there is dirt on him I wouldn't know about it.”

Conner was pretty sure the turn for the hallway was coming up soon, and he racked his brain desperately for something to say that would make an impression on Tim. He was beginning to understand why Clark had worried about this assignment--Conner thought he was pretty good at thinking on his feet, but that was for things like figuring out how best to fuck up bad guys in the middle of a fight, or how to get civilians to safety. This kind of thing required a different kind of imagination and it was making him sweat.

Tim was still giving him that skeptical look with the raised eyebrow, and Conner swallowed and blurted out, “You look so old when you make that face.”

Tim’s expression cleared so fast it was almost eerie, like he was a robot whose lines of program just suddenly ended. “Um, sorry?”

“That, with the eyebrow,” Conner says, gesturing in the direction of Tim’s face and feeling more like an idiot with each passing second. “I didn’t mean in a bad way! It’s just funny, like… it’s cute.”

“Cute,” Tim echoed, and Conner was pretty sure he was biting the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. This was going so well.

“Something like that,” Conner said. Why was it that the Cadmus scientists had given him like a zillion superpowers, only a handful of which he’d actually figured out how to use, yet not a single one was any help with stopping his face from turning red. Also he couldn’t teleport, which was unfortunate, because he wanted to be anywhere but here. “Uh, my classroom’s down this hall I think, so I’m gonna…. Go.”

Conner was already turning to flee the scene when he heard Tim say in a deadpan voice, “You look so old when you’re embarrassed.” 

Conner stopped and laughed, glancing back at Tim. “I am not embarrassed! And that doesn’t make any sense, anyway.”

Tim shrugged. He was smiling. “And what you said was the height of sense?”

“Something like that.”

This seemed like progress, maybe? Like Tim responding to Conner’s overtures of friendship, a good sign. Conner returned Tim’s smile with a grin of his own and turned so that he was walking backwards down the hallway, facing Tim. 

“Catch you later,” he said, and Tim just nodded. 

***

Tim watched Conrad’s retreating back, the smile fading from his lips. He made his way quickly down the hall until he found an empty classroom to duck into, taking out his phone and opening up the encrypted app that he used for all sensitive communications. 

_O, I need any information you can find about a Conrad Garrety. Age unknown, but I would assume 17 years old. New student at Gotham Academy._

Oracle’s response came immediately, like always. _On it. Anything in particular you want me to look for?_

 _Not sure._ Tim paused, thumb hovering over the screen. He remembered the way Conrad held himself, stiff in the shoulders, not used to wearing their school’s uniform blazer. The way Conrad’s brow furrowed, his eyes darting around right before he’d told Tim he looked like an old man. _Just look for anything strange. And the reason he might have transferred to this school. ___

____

____

Enough seconds passed that Tim thought the conversation was over, and then he felt the vibration of another text. _Has he done anything suspicious? Could he be an immediate threat to you or your classmates?_

Tim chewed at the inside of his cheek. He wanted to tell Oracle something that wasn’t ‘he singled me out to try and befriend, which is highly suspicious because no one here has ever done that.’ That would sound self-pitying or insecure, but it was just the truth. Conrad had noticed Tim in particular as soon as the class had started, making eye contact with him and grinning at him and then seeking him out in the hall. Tim had done nothing to indicate friendliness beforehand, and nothing to indicate that he was a good person to get to know for the social hierarchy, either. 

All that Conrad had to go on before approaching Tim was his face, which wasn’t anything special. If for some reason he just happened to think that Tim looked likeable, that still made him an anomaly. But it was much more likely that he had some kind of ulterior motive, something he’d decided on before laying eyes on Tim.

_Not an immediate threat. Just a few signs that could mean nothing, but I want to cover the bases._

Oracle sent back another affirmative and Tim slid his phone back into his pocket. He was going to be late for class. He was tempted to skip, but he didn’t actually have a reason to today, no active cases that Robin needed to investigate. 

He hoped that Conrad wouldn’t be in any of his other classes today. Even if Oracle didn’t turn up any dirt on him, Tim found him unsettling.

***

For the next two days Conner kept trying to talk to Tim after the classes they shared, and during class when he could get away with it, which he usually couldn’t. Hallway conversations were short, and pretty limited to how-are-yous and i-nearly-fell-asleep-in-that-class and observations about the weather, and they were led almost exclusively by Conner. Tim mostly limited his participation to polite words of affirmation and ‘hmms.’ 

Conner was beginning to understand why Tim didn’t seem to be very popular with his classmates, despite being a hot guy from a well-known rich family. Tim wouldn’t strike anyone as glaringly antisocial or standoffish, but he also clearly didn’t care about making friends. Conner had yet to see him exchange more than a few words with any of the other students. He seemed to pay attention during class, always taking notes and never obviously daydreaming like Conner. But otherwise, it was clear that whatever it was in life that Tim valued or cared about, none of it was in this school. 

It made getting close to Tim a tough prospect. Conner backed off after the first couple of days, kept his distance more, because the direct approach was obviously not working and he thought that if he pushed it too much, this whole thing would flop. He needed to come up with a better way.

Inspiration hit when he was going back over the documents Clark had given him, spread out on the tiny table in his temporary studio apartment. He had copies of Tim’s transcripts, school records, and anything that Clark had been able to track down about his hobbies and interests.

Up until a year ago, Tim had engaged in all the extracurriculars that you might expect from a teenager planning on going to an elite university: various community service projects, Debate Club, Spanish Club, fencing (whoa), Model U.N. And then towards the end of his sophomore year, he had dropped nearly all of them, and if there was an explanation for that it wasn’t in the paper trail.

Tim’s mother had died, but back when he was thirteen. It didn’t correlate with when he’d dropped all his clubs, so Conner guessed it was something else. 

The only extracurricular Tim still kept up was tutoring. Specifically, he was a physics tutor, and as soon as Conner saw that he felt a grin spreading across his face. He had actually been so abysmal at his last physics class at Smallville High that he’d been forced to work with a tutor, a tall nerdy guy named Greg that was a year above him. Conner had liked Greg, and the tutoring itself had been sorta helpful, except that Conner kept having to miss sessions to save Metropolis or whatever. Then tutoring had come to a permanent halt when a huge dinosaur/gorilla hybrid villain had attacked the library while they were in it, and Conner’d had to fake fainting in terror to cover for him sneaking out and changing into his costume and defeating the dinosaur/gorilla as Superboy. Greg had called it quits on being a tutor after that.

Conner had only been a Smallville resident for just over a year, but he could already tell that Clark’s insistence that it was a peaceful place--perfect for cultivating a secret identity, a sanctuary in case Conner ever got overwhelmed by the pressures of being a superhero, yadda yadda--was very much just wishful thinking.

Clark picked up after the second ring when Conner called. “Hey, so, whatever strings you pulled to get me transferred into this school and into Tim’s classes, do you think you could set it up so that he’s my physics tutor?”

Conner could practically hear Clark’s doubtful frown over the phone. “Probably. Are you sure that’s the best idea? All of the classes I put you into are at least a full grade below your level, we did that so that grades wouldn’t be an additional stress on top of this assignment.”

Conner bit his lip to keep himself from laughing. So maybe he’d slipped up and forgotten to keep Clark fully abreast of his progress, or lack thereof, in his high school classes. Goshdarn it. “Oh, uh, I wouldn’t worry about that. I think I can handle faking being worse at physics for the sake of the mission.”

***

A couple days after Tim first messaged her, Oracle sent him the information that Conrad Garrety did not actually exist, and the new guy at school was actually Conner Kent from Smallville. She didn’t know why Conner was hiding his identity or what he was doing at Gotham Academy. 

On the same day Tim got that memo, Conrad--Conner, Conner Kent from Smallville--stopped approaching him between classes and started keeping his distance instead. The timing of it was so suspicious that Tim wondered if Conner somehow knew that Tim now knew who he was.

But of course that was impossible unless Conner could somehow track Tim’s communication with Oracle, which would mean he knew Tim was Robin, and that was so far beyond a worst case scenario that Tim refused to even consider it.

He told Oracle that he could take the case from here. Conner’s social media was an easy enough place to start, and it was not hard to find strangeness there. Odd signs from Conner’s Instagram and Facebook that might come together with other things to create a pattern eventually, if Tim was diligent. All of Conner’s social media accounts dated back only a year or so. Which was not necessarily suspicious, just unusual--most teenagers got on social media far younger these days, but perhaps Conner was old-fashioned. 

His family consisted of his foster parents in Smallville, and two cousins, Kara and Clark. Clark would have been his foster brother officially, but they referred to each other as ‘cousins’ more than once on social media. Conner’s birth parents were unknown. He had only lived with the Kents for a little over year. 

Pretty much everything about Conner’s existence, save for his birth certificate and minimal records within Kansas’s foster system, dated back a little over a year. 

When Tim walked into the school’s library to meet the latest physics student that he’d be tutoring, he realized why Conner had suddenly stopped talking to him in the hallways. He was clearly trying a different tactic, and the tutoring angle made sense. It would give them more one-on-one time together, allowing Conner to try and get past Tim’s defenses in a more organic fashion than just repeatedly approaching him when he had no reason to.

It also made for a good opportunity for Tim to study Conner further. 

“We meet again,” Tim said as he approached Conner’s table. “Are you stalking me or something?”

Tim mostly just said it to see if Conner was as bad at covering for himself as Tim thought he might be. He was, of course. 

Conner looked away and coughed, awkward, before giving a weak laugh. “No, uh, nah. I was just randomly assigned to you. Weird, right?”

“Not really,” Tim said, and then took pity on him, opening his backpack to retrieve his physics books and tutoring notebook. “But I’m happy to help. I don’t do a whole lot of tutoring these days, to be honest, but it’s nice to be assigned to someone I already know.”

Conner beamed at him, like Tim had just complimented him instead of admitting that they knew each other. “Yeah! I trust you to save my ass from flunking. You seem like you could be a total miracle worker.”

Tim smiled. “Well. Let’s see where you’re at before I make any promises.”

As it turned out, Conner was not great at physics. Tim would suspect this of being a ruse, all part of whatever game he was trying to play at this school, but he was starting to theorize that Conner was not good enough at playing Conrad to come up with fake flaws. Conner’s brow always scrunched up at the textbook illustrations while Tim tried to explain conservation of energy. It seemed genuine. Tim kept wondering if he was giving himself a headache, frowning like that.

Conner made him laugh more than once during their scheduled hour. Sometimes this was because Tim allowed himself to laugh, but embarrassingly, sometimes it happened even when he had no intention of letting his real reactions come through. Bruce would be displeased, if he were here to see it. Tim could practically hear Batman’s voice in his head, saying _you could be in a situation someday where keeping a better poker face might save your life._

When the session came to a close, Conner leaned back in his library chair until the two front legs were off the ground, flipping his pencil up in the air and catching it in one hand while he stretched his other hand behind him, grabbing on to the back of the chair. Tim was fairly certain that Conner’s school blazer was too small for his chest. 

“What are you doing after this? I’m starving, and I heard that the diner down the street has great fries.”

The smart thing to do here was probably to say no, and not give Conner additional time and space to nose into Tim’s life. Curiosity was not a sufficient reason to say yes, not when the odds that Tim would find out anything actually useful were low. But Tim was already nodding, saying sure, slipping his books back into his messenger bag. 

“Really? Awesome!” Conner’s delighted surprise sent a strange warmth rushing through Tim’s chest, replaced immediately by sourness, because of course Conner was happy: Conner was investigating him, trying to get close for reasons that were currently unclear but surely nefarious. Tim should not be reacting to this like it’s someone genuinely interested in him.

When Bruce had first begun training him as Robin, he’d warned Tim that it was going to be isolating. _You won’t have much time for a social life, and you can’t be honest with any of your civilian friends about who you are. We’re keeping your existence a secret for as long as we can, so you won’t be getting to know other heroes either. Oracle will be busy, and Nightwing is in Blüdhaven._

Tim had officially been Robin for over a year now, and other than Nightwing and Alfred and Oracle, the only people who knew that Batman having a sidekick again was more than just a rumor were locked away in Arkham. He was only slightly less behind-the-scenes than Oracle, who there weren’t even rumors about. Tim understood the rationale for Batman keeping him a secret, and consequently keeping him away from the larger cape community. He accepted it, never questioned it, rarely let it bother him. But perhaps he needed to be more aware of the possible effects such isolation could have on his psyche, if he found himself this vulnerable to someone faking enthusiasm for his company. 

When they walked into the diner, Conner stopped in the entryway, muttering a soft ‘whoa.’ He was staring at the wall, where the diner had local awards framed and hung, along with a few other pictures and articles commemorating events in the diner’s apparently-long history.

Conner was looking at a framed newspaper clipping from several years ago, about Batman and Robin saving this diner and the whole block from Mr. Freeze. Along with a photo of Mr. Freeze being led in cuffs into the back of a police van, there was a very grainy snapshot of Robin, and what Tim had to assume was the swoop of Batman’s cape as he disappeared off camera. 

Tim felt adrenaline surge at the back of his tongue. He hadn’t known this was here. Hadn’t known because he’d never actually been to this diner before, because he had no friends at school who might suggest they try out the quality fries after study sessions. He felt caught horribly off-guard: he’d seen so many photos of Jason, hell he’d probably even found and examined this specific article either before or after becoming Robin himself. But it was still startling, seeing his dead predecessor when he hadn’t been expecting it. 

And the fact that Conner had zeroed in on it immediately, standing still in the diner entrance with an unreadable look on his face as his eyes scanned the article, dramatically lowered the odds that he was somehow here for non-Robin-related reasons.

Tim moved up next to him, hooking his thumb in his belt loop, trying not to think too hard about the tiny canister of pepper spray tucked against his hip for emergencies. Or the shuriken sheathed at his ankle. “Huh. You know, I never noticed this here before. Wild.”

Conner glanced at him and then back at the photo, like he’d almost forgotten Tim was there. “He doesn’t have a sidekick anymore, right? That’s kinda sad. Do you think Batman gets lonely now? Capes are just people, right, and people need people.”

Tim was at a loss. If Conner had initiated this line of conversation because he suspected Tim of being Robin, he was displaying better acting skills than he had at any point prior to now. He was still looking at the photo instead of Tim, the corner of his mouth tugged to the side in a sympathetic half-frown as he apparently contemplated Batman’s emotional state.

“I… don’t know,” Tim said, shrugging when Conner finally turned to him. “I haven’t given it much thought. Sounds like you have?”

And now the bad acting was back, as Conner winced and then tried to cover the wince and ended up looking like he’d just been stricken with food poisoning. “Uh, no, not really, I mean I think about superhero stuff sometimes I guess. Probably not any more than most people! Um, wanna grab a table?”

Tim swallowed back his smile as they slid into a vinyl booth and Conner blocked his face with the diner menu. Tim could still see the tips of his ears, and they were red. 

He shouldn’t be having so much fun messing with Conner, but it was too easy. And strangely, as strong as his fight-or-flight response had kicked in two minutes ago, Tim felt relaxed now, at ease. Safe, or as close to safe as he usually felt these days. 

He knew that didn’t make any kind of sense, and he did his best to quash the feeling. 

***

Conner had almost forgotten to ask Tim about his dad because he was enjoying their dinner so much. It was the fries, they really were the greatest. And also maybe a little bit the way Tim laughed and then smiled ruefully, like laughing was something he was surprised at himself for doing. Maybe a little bit the stories Tim told about old Gotham, the ridiculous over-the-top way that organized crime had run things before Batman arrived on the scene and started making things better.

But the point was that he _had_ remembered in the end, so he didn’t completely suck at this whole undercover thing. And if you looked on the bright side, maybe the fact that he’d only asked at the very end had made Tim more amenable to talking and less suspicious of the shift in topic.

“So, your dad,” Conner said, because maybe he’d just remembered he was supposed to have a mission here, panicked, and blurted out the first thing that came to mind. Tim gave him a quizzical look, and Conner did his best to blunder on. “I think he used to work with my dad. Like, ages ago, you and I would’ve just been kids. He told me when I mentioned you were gonna be my tutor.”

Conner gave himself a mental pat on the back, because that was a pretty good conversational in for something he’d come up on the fly. Or, well, at least it could have been worse.

“Mm, really?” 

“Do you think we could have met? It would’ve been elementary school, I guess. But odds are good that we would’ve been taken to the same office christmas parties, right? Seated at the same kids’ table or something.” Conner didn’t know why he was going down this tangent. It had nothing to do with anything. He didn’t know why he was suddenly fascinated with this lie he’d come up with, some alternate universe where he and Tim had known each other for years, grown up together. 

“I think I would have remembered you,” Tim said, and then two spots of color appeared high on his cheeks. He looked down and away, which just made Conner move forward, intrigued.

“Really? But I didn’t have my glasses back then.” Tim was inching back in the booth, almost imperceptibly, as Conner leaned in. 

Tim looked at him sideways, barely meeting his eyes. “I think I’d recognize you without your glasses.”

Conner laughed. “I hope not.”

“You hope not?” 

This was dangerous territory, stupid, Conner didn’t even know what he was saying or why he was saying it. He’d gotten caught up in… whatever this was. Were they flirting? Maybe he’d been flirting. He gave Tim his personal space back, slouching in the booth. “What’s your dad up to these days, anyway?”

Tim didn’t end up telling him much he didn’t already know, and Conner couldn’t figure out a way to keep pressing for information without coming off as weird(er). He let the subject drop, and then it was time to leave. It was dark out now, and cold enough that their blazers were a little too thin. Conner’s TTK mostly protected him from cold, but he noticed Tim shivering. He thought about offering him his blazer, but that would give Tim two blazers, which was probably kind of stupid.

“Well, I’m this way,” Conner said as they reached the corner. He already knew that Tim lived in the opposite direction.

“I’m the opposite. I’ll see you around, Conrad.”

For a second, Conner just blinked at the name, and then, oh shit. “Uh, right! Yeah. See you around, Tim.”

***

“Okay, but,” Conner said, a french fry sticking out of the corner of his mouth like a cigarette. Tim wondered why he didn’t find Conner talking with food in his mouth more disgusting. “We know that alien technology or future technology or whatever defies tons of what physics guys thought they knew about how shit works, right? So like… what’s the point of me still having to learn all this stuff?”

“Physicists. Physics guys are called physicists.” Conner stuck his tongue out at that, and Tim ducked his head so that Conner wouldn’t see the way he’d smiled. “And you’re not exactly wrong, but I would say that the most immediate point of you learning the material is you’re going to be tested on it in two weeks, and you need a good grade in this class to save your GPA.”

Conner sighed dramatically. “High school makes no damn sense, man.”

 _You’re the one who makes no damn sense,_ Tim wanted to tell him. It made no sense that Tim was here after school, on a day when they didn’t even have a tutoring session, just because Conner had asked him to have dinner again; it made no sense that Conner hadn’t asked him any probing questions about his life for at least a week now, seeming instead to be content to just hang out, not even trying to pump him for information.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Tim said, shrugging. “We’re all just doing what we have to do, I guess.”

Conner swallowed his french fry and looked away. “Yeah,” he said, voice pitched lower, and below the table Tim let his hand curl into a fist. 

***

“There are apps that could help you with that,” Tim said. Conner tickled his ear with the leaf he’d picked up while they walked. Tim batted him away. “Seriously, most students have trouble with time management, study skills, and keeping everything organized. Maybe some tools on your phone could help?”

“I doubt it,” Conner said. His work with the leaf had mussed several strands of Tim’s hair, and his fingers itched with the urge to tuck them back behind Tim’s ear. They had walked off from school with the intention of going to the diner (Conner had started thinking of it as ‘their’ diner), but neither of them were really hungry so they just kept walking and talking, circling the block. Somehow they were on the topic of Conner’s difficulty with juggling homework for all his different classes. Conner’s heart wasn’t really in the discussion; Tim couldn’t be that helpful when he didn’t know that a key part of the problem was that Conner routinely got pulled away from homework because Metropolis and/or the world needed saving.

“Honestly? I think your issue is one of priorities,” Tim said. “If you always put other things in your life ahead of schoolwork, then of course that’s going to be a problem for you, because our teachers will always assume that high school is the biggest responsibility we have.”

Conner blinked. That actually kind of hit the nail on the head. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re like, super smart?”

Tim rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you did, earlier today.”

Conner grinned. He gave in and reached over, fixing Tim’s hair. “Yeah, well, surprise nerd boy, it’s still true.”

Conner squeezed Tim’s shoulder when he was done with his hair. Tim felt bony but strong, and he didn’t want to let go, he wanted to pull Tim in closer. Realizing this made him drop his arm back to his side, feeling foolish.

Tim hummed, and didn’t remark on how Conner couldn’t keep his hands to himself. “If you say so. Usually I’m just thinking about what I need to do to be smarter.”

Conner felt like his mouth was filled with sawdust. He bent down, picking up another leaf from the sidewalk, unable to look Tim in the eye for some reason. “Yeah. Me too.”

***

The ideal thing for this investigation would be for Tim to invite Conner over to his house where he could X-ray vision some business cabinets (or wherever business people kept their shady business dealings). But Conner didn’t get the feeling that Tim was going to suggest that anytime soon. So it was on Conner to invite himself into the Drake residence, if Tim wouldn’t do it for him.

He headed over on a random Wednesday after class. He was planning to scope the place out, come up with a plan to maybe sneak in tomorrow during the school day when no one would be home, but when Conner loitered a couple blocks away he saw that Tim had already arrived home. And, well, part of this whole mission was keeping an eye on Tim, which meant watching him, right?

There was a coffee shop one block over from Tim’s house, and if Conner sat close to the front windows he had a good view of the house if he used his X-ray vision. For most of the night Tim was doing boring normal regular teenager things: doing his homework, doing his homework while watching TV, texting with people, heating up takeout leftovers for dinner. 

At one point he put his homework aside and busted out a pretty hardcore calisthenics workout in his room. For a guy who looked so skinny in their school uniform, Tim sure could do a lot of pushups. Who knew he was so ripped? Conner hoped that none of the other coffee shop patrons were noticing how red his face was while he stared hard through the brick wall across the street.

At around eleven, Conner was getting ready to throw in the towel, because the coffee shop closed at midnight and Tim was probably just going to bed soon. But then Tim started acting strangely. He stood at his bedroom window and surveyed the street, then took out a pair of binoculars and surveyed it again, like he was making absolutely certain there was no one around outside. (Conner felt a tendril of cold guilt along his spine, but he was also very grateful that he was a block away and blocked from the house’s view by that wall.) 

Tim took out his phone and texted a bit more, then nodded to himself and went to his closet. Conner realized a few seconds too late that he was stripping off his clothes, and didn’t avert his eyes until Tim was down to his briefs. Conner stared down at his coffee mug, which had been empty for hours now, too flustered to be able to turn off his x-ray vision so that he saw through the mug, table and floor down to the kinda-gross basement infrastructure of the building. Ew, there were roaches and rats down there.

When Conner dared to look back, he thought that he’d see Tim clad in pajamas and tucking himself into bed. Instead he saw Tim--holy shit, Tim was dressed in red and black spandex with a mask and tights and an R on his chest and Tim, Tim was _Robin,_ as in ‘Batman and,’ as in the rumors of his existence were all true, as in _holy shit._

Conner watched, slack-jawed, as Tim opened his bedroom window and climbed out of it, balancing effortlessly on the narrow window ledge before jumping up onto the roof just as effortlessly. Conner was about to lose him. He scrambled into action, hastily dumping the books he’d been pretending to study into his bag and hurrying out onto the street, looking around wildly with his vision x-ray’d to the max before he spotted Tim again, already several rooftops away.

Conner had to jog to keep Tim in his sights as he flitted from rooftop to rooftop. It was inevitable that Conner would lose him; he didn’t want to call attention to himself by running full-tilt across all of downtown, not in a city like Gotham were there were still plenty of people out and about this late on a weeknight. And he obviously couldn’t fly, because he couldn’t be Superboy right now, so that sucked. He slumped against the corner of some bank building and caught his breath, sending his superhearing out. 

He was still learning how to use this power, and it was tricky to sift through the tidal wave of noises that crashed in on him all at once. Eventually he narrowed in on the sound of boots hitting gravel high, high above him, and Tim’s harsh breathing, occasionally interrupted by the whoosh of air when Tim sent a grapple line out and sailed over the spaces between skyscrapers before landing again.

He was still far off when he heard Tim say “I’ll take this one, it’s on my block. R out.” And then he was heading from the rooftops to the ground, and now Conner could hear the sounds of someone being hit and another person screaming before that was muffled. He was just about ready to throw away his glasses and maybe ditch his shirt or something and hope that it was enough to protect his secret identity, because Tim was about to drop in on some kind of violence and Conner couldn’t just stay uninvolved. Not when he was bulletproof and Tim, secret superhero or not, definitely wasn’t.

Conner had dropped into a dead sprint when he heard Tim join the fight. He listened to the brutal, thumping sounds of flesh hitting flesh, the civilian gasping, a gun clattering on pavement. Then it was all silent except for the civilian’s breaths shuddering as they started to cry. Then--

“O? It’s handled. R out.”

The civilian spoke up--a man’s voice, it sounded like. “Oh my god. You’re Robin, aren’t you? You--you’re just a kid.”

“I’m older than I look,” Tim said. Conner snorted at the lie. “Listen. The police are on their way. I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell them I was here. You can say that you don’t know who saved you, or you can say it was Batman, if you want. Do you understand?”

The civilian muttered his assent, and then came the sound of Tim firing off a grapple line, taking off.

Conner arrived at the scene to see the cops arrive, collecting four would-be assailants, all zip-stripped at the wrists and ankles. Tim had taken out four dudes, all older and bigger than him and all apparently armed, before Conner even had a chance to show up and help.

 _Robin_ had done that. The Robin that wasn’t supposed to exist. The Robin whose partner was the guy who’d probably come after Conner and Clark both with a Bat-grenade launcher if he knew that Conner was secretly investigating anyone in his city, and who’d probably make those grenades kryptonite if he found out that Conner was investigating his secret sidekick.

One of the only things Batman and Superman agreed upon was their rule about not knowing the other’s secret identity. Superman could use his x-ray vision to see through the mask and maybe Batman was a good enough detective to figure out who Superman would look like with glasses, but as Clark explained it, professional courtesy kept them from snooping into each other’s personal lives. Clark always swore up and down that he had no idea who Batman really was, and while he might dislike Batman, he believed him when he said that he had no idea who Superman was, either.

Batman was the least friendly and most secretive superhero on the planet. And now Conner knew that not only did Batman have a Robin, but that Robin was named Tim Drake, went to Gotham Academy, sounded cute when he was explaining physics and could do hella pushups. 

Conner’s heart thumped painfully as he turned away from the cop cars and the civilian huddled in the door of an ambulance. It was really admirable, what Tim had done tonight. He was probably going to keep doing it all night, all over the city. Without TTK or being able to fly or any of that. And Conner didn’t usually go in much for denial, so he wasn’t about to deny that he felt a little starstruck, a little awed. And he’d already liked Tim so much even before this. He’d already…

Conner was pretty positive that in the undercover rulebook, right after the rule ‘Don’t blunder your way into uncovering a fellow hero’s secret identity’, there was ‘Don’t develop a massive idiot schoolboy crush on your target.’ That rule was probably in all-caps, bolded, underlined. 

This mission was so screwed. 

***

Tim had his excuses for why he’d gotten lax on investigating Conner these past few weeks. He’d been spending most of his nights helping Bruce on a long-term stakeout of warehouses down by the docks. Nightwing had asked for his help researching some property history in Blüdhaven, because he didn’t want to bother Oracle for some reason. And Conner still wasn’t showing signs of being a real threat, had displayed no agenda other than wanting to feed Tim fries and occasionally carry his books. Tim hadn’t let his guard down, but maybe he hadn’t made Conner his highest priority.

Well. He hadn’t made researching Conner’s presence in Gotham a high priority. When it came to how much mental real estate he gave him, Conner wasn’t anywhere close to the bottom of his priority list. That wasn’t on purpose, it was just an unfortunate mental hangup.

“What’s with you today?” Tim said, after he approached Conner in the hallway and Conner jumped almost a foot in the air at his ‘hey.’ 

“What? Uh, ha ha, nothing! Nothing is with me today, dude.” Conner scratched at the short hair at the back of his head, a gesture Tim had already noted as his nervous tic. He was avoiding Tim’s eyes. “Everything’s fine. Really boring, in fact.”

Conner had been pretending to be Conrad for almost a month now; it amazed Tim sometimes that he hadn’t improved his lying abilities in that whole time. He continued to act jumpy and weird around Tim all day, and he kept staring out windows with a worried, guilty look on his face. Whenever he noticed Tim looking at him, he acted overly cheerful, and he insisted that nothing was wrong when Tim asked him about it.

By the end of the day, uneasiness had soured into suspicion in Tim’s stomach. He couldn’t forget that Conner was here because of him, that Conner’s friendship was only a pretense. If Conner was obviously distraught because of something, it probably had everything to do with Tim. 

Whoever Conner was, he hadn’t wormed his way into Tim’s life with good intentions, and Tim had allowed himself to conveniently ignore that for long enough.

That night he devoted himself to research. He started where he left off last time, with Conner’s records within the Kansas foster care system. The further he dug down, the more confusing Conner’s whole life story seemed, until Tim was pretty sure that somewhere along the line various aspects of his identity had just been pulled out of thin air. 

One particular rabbit hole led him to hacking into Cadmus Labs’ database. He was in the zone, zeroed in on answering all his questions by any means necessary, and it was easier to get into Cadmus than he’d thought it would be. Once he was in, he kept following the trail, and it led him to a cloning project, which led him to a low-quality .avi file--

For several seconds, Tim had a hard time processing what he was looking at. Then he reeled back from his computer screen, closing out of the tab in horror. 

It was a video of Conner being--’born’ wasn’t the right word, but Tim wasn’t sure what else to call it. And not Conner, but Clone LL-SM 1.24, as the video file had been labeled. It had shown Conner--the clone-- _Conner_ stumbling out of the person-sized broken test tube, blinking against steam and strobed in red and white light as the lab’s alarms went off. Conner looked around, and then his eyes began to glow red in a very recognizable way, and then the video ended as Superman’s trademark heat vision took out the camera.

Conner Kent was Superboy. And Tim didn’t want to make this connection, wildly considered knocking himself out with his own batarang before he could finish having this thought, but it was not hard to make the mental leap and realize that if Conner Kent was Superboy, Clark Kent was almost certainly Superman.

Tim had never been more horrified with himself. It was one thing to have deduced that Bruce Wayne was Batman--he’d been _trying_ to do that, because he’d been desperately worried about Batman’s future after the last Robin’s death, and he still thought he was right. But stumbling onto the secret identities of Superboy, of _Superman?_ Tim knew that there was no way villains could be reading his mind right now, but he still felt an involuntary twitch of fear at the thought of how valuable the information in his head suddenly was.

And finding out had been a god damn accident. This was--it was too insane. His hand shaking, Tim replayed the video, half-hoping that it would show him something different this time and half-needing to make sure that he hadn’t just hallucinated. He closed out again as soon as he realized that he was paying as much attention, if not more, to the parts of Conner’s body not obscured by mist than he was to the signs of Kryptonian superpowers being used.

There were so many aspects of this that were so bad, so horrifically awful that Tim shouldn’t even be thinking about the part that was the least significant yet somehow felt the worst. He… he had a whole folder on his computer of photos of Superboy that he’d saved. It felt so creepy to him now, but it hadn’t started as--as anything like that. He just, he saved photos sometimes of things he found aesthetically pleasing, just like any other teenager with internet access. 

And he had found Superboy’s face aesthetically pleasing for a long time now. For maybe the entire time that Superboy had been around as a hero. He maybe had one, a few, several google alerts set up for Superboy sightings; he’d maybe read every quote that Superboy had ever given to a journalist.

He’d been telling himself it was in preparation of possibly having to work with Superboy someday, should Robin ever be exposed to the broader cape community. But here alone in his bedroom, with his cheeks burning and his hand still clapped over his mouth in horror and embarrassment, it was difficult to lie to himself. He hadn’t followed the careers of Wonder Girl or Kid Flash quite so closely.

Knowing that Conner was really Superboy made it fairly obvious what he was doing here in Gotham, and Tim cursed into his hand. It had only ever been about his father’s company and the Lex Luthor connection, about Tim as a Drake and not Tim as Robin. Conner might have no idea who he was--unless he’d found out in the past few weeks, because it had not occurred to Tim that the person spying on him might have x-ray vision and superhearing.

Tim was already up and out of his chair and grabbing for his costume. This whole thing had gotten out of hand, and it was only going to get worse if he kept pretending to be clueless. The only thing to do was confront Superboy directly, even if that thought made Tim’s guts do unhappy flips.

And here he thought he’d been doing a great job of ignoring his attraction to Conner. Fuck, _fuck._

Conner was living in a condo on the outskirts of the residential neighborhood adjacent to their school. His apartment was on the top floor, and Tim crouched on the rooftop above his living room window for a while, trying to get his muscles to unfreeze and calm his racing heart. Then he realized that there was a very good chance that Conner could hear him up here right now, and it was now or never.

Tim swung down to crouch on the window ledge, knocking on the window. Conner was sprawled on his couch wearing headphones, and when Tim knocked he jumped and flailed and looked wildly around, and when he saw Robin at his window his mouth fell open.

“Oh my god,” Conner said as he hastily opened the window. “Oh my god, how are you not falling off? How is that even possible?”

Tim’s heart sank as he climbed into the apartment, because Conner was not reacting like this was the first time he had ever seen Robin. The odds that Conner had not figured out his secret identity just took a nosedive for the bottom.

“Conrad,” Tim said, standing and letting the cape fall around him. He glanced around the apartment. It had some of Conner’s jackets and schoolbooks strewn around, but otherwise showed no signs of his personality. He must be subletting from someone else, someone with hotel-bland taste in furnishings.

“Um, what are you doing here? I mean. Who are you?” It was kind of fascinating to watch someone cringe at themselves while they were still talking; Conner seemed to realize that he had missed the boat on acting his way out of this one. 

Tim sighed. “I’m Robin. And you’re…. Superboy. And also.” Tim didn’t want to keep going, because the blood was already draining from Conner’s face, his eyes going round as saucers behind the square frames of his glasses. “Conner Kent.”

“I--I don’t--” Conner took in a deep breath and reached back behind himself until he found the couch armrest to lean on. He laughed weakly. “I guess it’d be pointless to claim I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Tim’s eyes were hidden behind the mask, so he stared at the tasteful rugs on Conner’s living room floor, patterned in gray and muted red geometric shapes. His throat felt roughly constricted. He wanted to apologize. But that would be neither appropriate nor necessary. “You shouldn’t be in Gotham.”

Now it was Conner’s turn to sigh. “I know. I’ll be gone soon, okay? Maybe by tomorrow.” 

Wait, what? But Conner was still talking, looking up now with an anxious twist to his lips. “I, uh, I know who you are too. I mean. I know that it’s you, Tim.”

As it turned out, Tim was unprepared for the impact of hearing Conner call him by that name when he was Robin. He tried not to think about how Conner could probably hear his pulse going jackrabbit-fast. “I see.”

“I didn’t mean to find out! I’m really sorry! It was an accident, I swear. And I’m sorry for coming here in the first place, for posing as Conrad.” Conner squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, then looked horribly earnest when he opened his eyes again, the overhead light glinting off his glasses like some kind of flashing beacon. “I told Superman tonight that I’m done with the mission and that he should be too, because you’ve got it under control. Oh shit, do you know Superman’s identity now? Oh, _fuck._ ”

Tim opened and closed his mouth. He didn’t understand why this conversation had him so badly disoriented. He was attracted to Conner, yes, but he had acknowledged that and he was going to compartmentalize and deal with it, just not here and now. “I--yes. Like you said, it was an accident. I wasn’t trying to uncover the identities of Superboy or Superman. You’re calling off your mission?”

“Well, yeah. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell Superman that it’s because Jack Drake is your dad. I just told him that I found out that Batman was on the case, and he could definitely handle it.” Conner groaned. “I can’t believe you know who Superman is! That’s, geez, that’s so freaking bad, and also I didn’t find out who Batman is, so it’s totally not fair, also.”

“You--what?”

“I mean, I could have probably figured out who Batman was if I had looked more into your history, but I stopped as soon as--”

“No, not that. You told Superman to end your mission here because Batman is on it?” Tim remembered that time a few months back when Scarecrow had hit him and Batman with some kind of gas that had made all of his thoughts come to him in slow motion. This felt almost like that, but Conner’s sincere words and anxious facial expressions shouldn’t be a mind-altering substance. 

Conner shrugged. “To be honest, I don’t know about Batman. But even before I knew you were Robin I knew how smart you are, and I only saw you as Robin for one night but damn, that was enough to get the picture that you’re, like, scarily good at _that,_ too. So yeah. I don’t think you need me getting in the way with your dad and Luthor.”

Tim gawked. _Oh no,_ he thought miserably. This was awful timing to fall in love with someone. 

He cleared his throat, trying to dismiss the realization that what Conner had said was he trusted Tim, trusted him with Lex Luthor after knowing him as Tim Drake for a few weeks and seeing him fight as Robin for one night. “We have a plan in place for the unfortunate connection between Drake and LuthorCorp, yes.”

Conner’s lips twitched upward. “You call your own dad ‘Drake’?”

Tim had combat training from Batman, Nightwing and Lady Shiva herself, he exerted total control over his body at all times, and he was _not_ blushing right now. “His familial relation to me wasn’t relevant to the discussion.”

“You crack me up, man.” Conner’s smile widened to a grin, and then faded. “I’m, uh. Sorry again for lying to you about being Conrad, and for finding your identity. I won’t tell Superman, don’t worry.”

This was not the first or second time Conner had apologized tonight. From the beginning of all this, it had been difficult for Tim to call up the appropriate amount of anger at him for lying, and now that he knew the reasons behind it, it was even more impossible to blame him. “I’m sorry, too. For uncovering your identity. And--because I knew your real name was Conner in the first week.”

“You did? Aw, man. I’m so bad at this undercover stuff.”

The offer to teach Conner how to improve at it was on the tip of his tongue, but no, that was ridiculous. “Sorry. I think you would have been fine if you hadn’t been trying to investigate a detective.”

“Maybe. Guess it’s a moot point now, since I’m headed back to Smallville tomorrow.”

“Oh.” This was a good thing. As soon as Conner was gone, Tim’s feelings would subside over time, and maybe someday he would forget how his heart right now felt simultaneously several sizes too large and crushed too tight. It was for the best.

“Yeah. But, uh, listen.” Conner looked at him with a stubborn tilt to his chin and something resolute in his eyes, settling his shoulders back. “I know that you’re trying to keep your whole deal a secret, even from other capes, for whatever reason. But I think--we should stay in touch, okay? Stay friends. Maybe work together to take baddies down at some point, who knows.”

Tim blinked behind his mask. “You think we’re friends?”

Conner shrank back immediately, and goddammit, Tim hated himself sometimes. He crossed the room before giving himself time to think, reaching out to touch Conner’s forearm. 

“I didn’t mean it like that. I just. Didn’t realize that you being friendly to me was…. real.”

“Oh. Well. Yeah.” Conner looked down at Tim’s gloved hand on his arm, and Tim fought the urge to take his hand back. It seemed important to keep it there. “Yeah, that was really real. I like you.”

“I like you, too.” The only lie there was in the magnitude. Tim felt a little like the words had choked him.

Conner’s eyes were soft when he looked up at Tim’s face. He had long eyelashes, Tim noticed. They seemed even longer after Conner reached up, taking off his glasses. And there was Superboy, there was the face that Tim had daydreamed about off and on for over a year. 

“Oh,” Tim said. Heard himself say. Why did he just say that?

Conner licked his bottom lip. “I know I just said--I mean, we _are_ friends. But. Can I kiss you?”

It took Tim too long to answer, because had he just misheard, hallucinated maybe from how much he’d wanted to hear something like that. When he finally managed to squeak out, “Sure,” Conner’s shoulders sagged in relief, and then he cupped Tim’s cheek, tilting Tim’s face up as he leaned in.

Conner’s lips were soft against his, and he made a small, deep noise when Tim kissed him back. It was slow, without much pressure, and from this close all Tim could see was the out-of-focus, blurry shape of Conner’s eyelashes against his cheek. 

Conner pulled back while Tim’s thoughts were still racing around his head, leaving him useless to do much else other than sway forward. He felt Conner’s thumb stroke his cheekbone. He closed his eyes, belatedly; he knew you were supposed to do that while the kiss was actually happening.

“Wow,” Conner said, sounding shaky. Tim swallowed.

“Kiss me again?”

Conner complied immediately. Tim opened his mouth for it this time, and Conner was eager enough with his tongue that Tim suspected this kissing thing was new for him, too. That was okay. Tim reached up to put his hands on Conner’s shoulders and stroked his tongue along Conner’s, slowly, slowing it down until Conner got the picture and adopted his rhythm. Then it was better, then it was pretty much perfect, and Tim got so wrapped up in the momentum that when they finally stopped to breathe, he was clinging tight to Conner and Conner’s fist was clenched in his hair, his other hand squeezing Tim’s ass through his cape. 

“Oh, sorry,” Conner said, and let go of Tim’s ass. Tim breathed through the impulse to grab that hand and put it right back. Not getting carried away was--was a good idea.

“It’s okay,” he said instead. Dear god, he’d never heard his own voice sound like that.

“Dude,” Conner said, and his hand settled on Tim’s ribcage instead, which was almost worse. “Can we be boyfriends now?”

Tim looked up at him. He felt like he was recovering from an oxygen deficit, like each thought that struggled to the surface of his mind was stupider than the last. _Conner’s eyes seem bluer without the glasses._ True, but irrelevant. _Can superheroes even have boyfriends?_ Probably, not that he had any good examples of that in his immediate circle. _Can Robin have a boyfriend?_ Okay, yes, that was probably the question he needed to focus on.

“I don’t, um, know.”

Conner’s mouth turned down at the corners, and Tim experienced a brief vertiginous sensation at how very very much this was Superboy five inches from his nose, Superboy pouting because Tim hadn’t immediately agreed to date him. 

“Man, really? But we’d be so great together.” Conner leaned back against the couch as he spoke, letting his hand drop from Tim’s side and giving Tim space. Tim just wanted to get close again. He tried to freeze that want and shove it down, down, down.

“I just--I don’t--I’m Robin,” Tim said, and winced at how little sense he was making. He took a deep breath and tried again. “I have responsibilities. Batman, he--I’m just not sure that giving myself an ongoing distraction like this is wise.”

Conner looked away and blew out a breath, his cheeks puffing out for a moment. Tim expected more objections, but all he said was, “So that’s it? I go back to Smallville, you keep on not officially existing, we just pretend this never happened?”

 _Yes, that’s exactly what we do._ It was on the tip of Tim’s tongue; it was what Robin should say, the right decision. He should say it, speak up, put this to rest. Instead he was just standing here and silently struggling with himself.

Tim kept thinking about Conner eating a hamburger across the table from him at the diner, Conner staring at that old newspaper photo of Batman and Robin and speculating about Batman’s well-being, Conner’s face as he watched Tim take him through physics equations in the library. And then he thought of grainy news footage of Superboy flying, Superboy grinning at a camera and flashing a peace sign, cell phone video taken of Superboy rescuing civilians off a broken bridge in Metropolis while Superman battled with a supervillain robot army overhead. 

Tim was losing what little resolve he’d managed to muster. He tried to think this through logically, tried to call up the many reasons he had to not date anyone right now, least of all Conner Kent who lived in Smallville and was also Superboy. But logic felt hard to come by.

“Okay. If that’s how you feel, then it’s fine, I’m not trying to be a dick here. I’ll just, um, I should start packing maybe…” Conner looked around the apartment like he was already thinking about next steps, like he wanted Tim gone, and Tim understood. He should just--the window was still open, Batman was always so adept at disappearing in an instant--

Instead he said, “Wait.”

Instead he reached out and caught the sleeve of Conner’s t-shirt, slid his hand down to Conner’s arm, pulled himself in. Instead he wrapped himself around Conner again, tilted his face up.

“Let’s be boyfriends,” Tim said, mumbled really, barely able to hear himself over the giddy roar of his own heartbeat. But Conner laughed and whooped and said “Hell yeah,” and he could hear that just fine.

***

When Conner first got to Gotham a few weeks ago, he figured he’d be relieved when it came time to leave and go back to Smallville. He didn’t think he’d be dragging his feet when it came time to pack his couple of suitcases, or that his stomach would feel so strangely heavy when he filled out the transfer paperwork in Gotham Academy’s admin offices, going through the bureaucratic steps to un-enroll himself. That took up most of his morning, and afterwards there wasn’t much left to do, but his train didn’t leave for another few hours.

“Do you think it’ll be difficult to catch up with your regular classes? After being out with mono for almost a month.” Tim leaned against the edge of the coffee table as he watched Conner crawl around on the living room floor, looking under furniture and triple-checking that he wasn’t leaving any bits and pieces behind. Tim was in his school uniform, minus the blazer that was draped over a chair, but now when Conner looked at him he couldn’t imagine how he never saw Robin in the clean, strong, controlled lines of Tim’s body before. 

Conner sat back on his heels after peering under the couch, and made a face as he pulled a dust bunny out of his hair. “Nah. I mean, my baseline is crappy grades anyway, so it shouldn’t be a big deal to reach those lofty heights again, you know?” 

“I’m not sure that makes sense.” Conner looked over to see Tim smiling at him, really smiling, and it was great how Tim didn’t hold himself back now from smiles or laughter with him; Tim let Conner see how much he liked him.

“If you find you need help with physics again, well. There’s… always skype.” Tim looked away, biting his lip a little, and Conner’s cheeks hurt a bit from grinning so hard.

“Yeah? What about other classes? I might need help with a lot.”

Tim sniffed. “Physics is the only subject I ever actually tutored for.”

Conner crawled over to Tim and stayed kneeling at his feet, eye-level with Tim’s waist. He looped his fingers around Tim’s wrist. “Yeah, but you’re good at everything.”

Tim looked down at him, raising one eyebrow. “You don’t know that. You’ve only known me for a month.”

“You look like an old man when you do that with your face.”

Tim snorted, but didn’t let Conner change the subject. “We barely know each other.”

Conner sighed and got to his feet, still holding Tim’s hand. “Is it that weird to not know someone super well when you start dating them? ‘Start’ being the key word there.”

Tim laced their fingers together. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s weird when it’s Superboy and Robin. And when we know each other’s real names. And when Superman and Batman don’t know that we know each other’s real names. And don’t know that we’re dating.”

Tim’s eyes were so sharp, and looking down into them made Conner’s spine go shivery. It was new to him, this feeling of missing someone when they were still right here in front of you. Conner was usually an in-the-moment kind of guy, but right now he felt like part of him was in the future, miles away from Tim and very sad about it. He’d never liked someone this much before, never even close.

“You’re right, all of that is totally weird as hell,” Conner said, squeezing Tim’s hand. Tim reached up, hooking a finger in the collar of Conner’s t-shirt. Conner waited for Tim to pull him in for a kiss, but Tim just held him like that, with his fingers brushing the skin of Conner’s chest and his gaze roving over Conner’s collarbones.

“Weird as hell,” Tim echoed. “Strange. Unusual. Bizarre.”

“Just really fucking out there,” Conner agreed. Tim’s lips twitched, and now he did pull Conner closer.

“I’m really glad we met,” Tim said, mumbling it right before kissing Conner, like saying it made him nervous or shy. Conner wrapped an arm around him, resting their foreheads together after breaking the kiss.

“Tim, dude. Robin. Yeah. I’m happy we met. I’m happy you figured out who I am. And please don’t be mad, but--I’m happy I know who you are, too.”

Conner thought Tim might grumble at that, but he just laughed. Conner was so happy it was something they could laugh at. Even if it was weird how everything had happened, even if Conner had screwed up everything in the undercover rulebook on the way. Now they had this delicate trust between them, and yeah. It was all worth it.


End file.
